


Nightlights

by Sunjinjo



Series: Wings, Scales, Nightingales [4]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Armageddon, Astronomy, Aziraphale Whump (Good Omens), Cherubim Aziraphale, Comforting Aziraphale (Good Omens), Dreams, Dreams and Nightmares, Dreamsharing, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Hurt Aziraphale (Good Omens), I love being cruel, Lucid Dreaming, M/M, Nightmares, Post-Canon, Protective Crowley, Snake Crowley (Good Omens), Sort Of, South Downs Cottage (Good Omens), Stars, War in Heaven (Good Omens), but I love being kind even more
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-13
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-08-20 16:02:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20230558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sunjinjo/pseuds/Sunjinjo
Summary: He never should have left a Duke of Hell in voicemail.---There was war in Heaven just before Hell would be created, but its horrors emerged in Heaven first.Crowley and Aziraphale, their worst nightmares, and how the other will not stand for them. Can be read as a standalone work.





	1. Darkness to Darkness

He could smell the smoke from three blocks away, even from within the car. Somehow, horribly, he could _smell_ the leather bindings and countless yellowed pages in it, the faded carpets and rugs, the grandfather clock and the old gramophone. The back room and the wine rack.

Crowley still tried telling himself it was any other building sending up the column of smoke and ringing sirens, right until the point where he pulled up to the curb.

So that was why Aziraphale hadn’t been picking up his phone.

He leapt from the car, his entire body numb, somehow making it through the throng of firefighters and Soho onlookers, his strides somehow so sure nobody thought to stop him. “Are you the owner of this establishment?”

Crowley swung around. “Do I look like I run a bookshop?” he snarled, snapping his fingers and forcing his way into the burning building. _“Aziraphale!”_

There, on the floor, between burning piles of books and a suffocating haze of smoke – an abandoned phone, dropped in a hurry.

Crowley pressed an arm against his nose and mouth to stifle his unnecessary, hyperventilating breaths, stumbling deeper into the shop that’d once been a safe haven. No time to mourn it. Other things first. Satan Below, _please…_

There, between blazing bookcases and the steadily collapsing second floor. Two figures.

It’d once been a safe haven, but it’d been invaded by the same entity that’d desecrated Crowley’s apartment.

He should never have left a Duke of Hell in voicemail. Like any inconvenience he caused, it came back to bite him in the ass, like a particularly vindictive ouroboros. Only this time, he wasn’t the only one being bitten.

Hastur stood tall, lazily turning to the other demon tripping towards him. Aziraphale was on his knees, trembling wings folded over his head, making himself as small as possible amidst the ravenous hellfire.

“You let him go,” Crowley choked out, his glasses cracking and revealing wide yellow eyes. His voice didn’t fare much better. “You let him go _right now_ or I’ll –”

“You’ll what?” the Duke interjected with an amused smile. “You played your trick, you’ll never get to play it again. You’re done for, Crowley, you and your best friend.”

Aziraphale slightly lifted his head, turning pleading eyes on the frozen demon. “Crowley, just – just get out –”

“_Not without you._” He’d never been so certain of anything. And yet, it was impossible to move.

“He called you up,” Hastur relished. “He set me free. It’s only fair that I should thank him for it. And you, of course, Crowley, for introducing us.” A horrible, self-indulgent pause, and Crowley _hated_ – who did he think he was, some movie villain –

“Here’s my thanks. I grant you one last look at eachother. Now, say goodbye.” He raised a hand, ready to snap his fingers.

Aziraphale pushed himself up and to his feet. Crowley leapt forward, his hand outstretched.

He was just in time to be trapped in the column of hellfire right alongside his angel as it blazed up, as Hastur erupted into maniacal laughter behind him.

The angel’s entire body went rigid in his arms. Veins of fire ate through his clothes, his wings, down to his hands, up to his face, undeterred by Crowley’s frantic hands fumbling after them as if that’d make any sort of difference. Then the satanic force pulsed through them, and Aziraphale went up into nebulizing embers, as if he’d never existed at all.

Crowley speechlessly stared at the embers as they vanished into the fire. His hands trembled uncontrollably as he dropped to his knees, feeling for all the world like his heart had just been burned out of his chest as well, leaving only a gaping pit as wide as a black hole. Tears sprung into his eyes, stinging as the fire stole them away, like acid, like holy water.

Ha. He _wished._

Hastur was still laughing, shrill and horrible, like someone who’d seen a description of laughter written out somewhere once and subsequently forgotten most of it. Like someone who could never understand Earth or humanity, or bookshops run by angels, or what a demon might feel for such an angel.

With a hoarse, strangled yell, Crowley was back on his feet, and on Hastur.

At once, the higher-ranking demon’s hand shot out and lifted him by the throat. “I don’t think so, Crowley,” he spoke gravely, every trace of laughter gone. “No more games. You’re coming with me.”

And as the bookshop collapsed around them, the earth opened up to swallow them down its dark and unforgiving gullet.

When he could see again, he knew something was wrong.

Insofar as that statement even meant anything anymore, of course. He was in Hell’s bad books. The whole world was ending.

His world _had_ already ended.

And yet. And yet. He couldn’t put his finger on it even if he’d wanted to.

His finger. There was a ring around his little finger.

He held up his hands before his face. Even in the dim light of Hell he could see they were not his own. Too short, too plump, too well-manicured – and that _ring,_ he’d know it anywhere –

_…What?_

The darkness before him turned translucent, a grimy window. Beyond it, a crowd of demons and a stark white bathtub that really had no business being here. And before that, a figure that did. Or didn’t. Crowley felt dizzy as some last coherent part of him realized what he was looking at.

His own form, lanky and slender, and really supposed to be at home and at one with Hell – but the Crowley he was looking at seemed nervous, flinched into himself and fidgety, in a way he’d never let himself get away with Down Here. And he knew why. That wasn’t him. He _knew_ who it was.

He was pounding on the glass before realizing he’d rushed towards it. _“Aziraphale!”_ And God, his heart and voice had broken the first time, but this time the scream felt like it was drawing blood. This was too much. His mind could grasp nothing but this devouring panic, his entire body was on fire with shock, incomprehension and adrenalin. “Azira-”

“Give it a rest, Crowley.”

He tensed up, whirled around. He wasn’t alone in the dark. Hastur had followed him.

A question wrung its way to his throat, now he had someone to ask it to. “How – how is he –”

“You really think I’d keep him all to myself?” The other demon chuckled. “No. I dragged him down here first. Eric, over there, did a fine job impersonating him up there.” Hastur slung an arm across Crowley’s shoulders, toted him back to the window and pointed at a younger-looking demon in the crowd, one of the lowest rank, disposable. And currently discorporated.

“And you really thought swapping vessels would save you? Tsk, tsk.” Hastur brought his face close to Crowley’s, toad eyes unfeeling. He reeked of smoke and swampland. “Your vessel is tainted, Crowley. It could never protect him. You could never protect anyone. Watch him fizzle like any other demon.” He forced Crowley’s face to the window as Aziraphale was forced backwards towards the holy water he wouldn’t be immune to. Aziraphale, who shouldn’t be down here in the first place, should never be made to endure even a moment of this dark, dank, fetid realm, let alone those who dwelled in it. Should never have been made to wear his worthless, thrice damned _body_ –

Crowley ground his teeth and let out a desperate, choked sound, then a scream as one of the demons stepped forward towards his angel, and _shoved._ He tightly shut his eyes as the bubbling started and Aziraphale’s own cry was cut off. He dropped to the filthy floor like a ragdoll as Hastur let him go, and left him alone in the dark, curled up and sobbing so desperately he couldn’t even draw breath.

A bright sound chimed before him. Soft light fell onto his face. He shielded himself from it, eyes screwing shut tighter.

“…Oh. Oh dear. We haven’t had one this bad in a while.”

Soft _hands_ touched his face, gently framing it and wiping away his tears. Crowley shuddered, leaning into the touch thoughtlessly, clinging to any scrap of comfort after having been pushed over every edge his mind had been able to take. A wounded sound emerged from somewhere in his chest.

“Shh. Shh. Crowley. Dear, it’s alright. Open your eyes, sweetheart.”

Somehow, he managed. What he saw turned everything upside down for a third time. “Aziraphale.” His voice was a ragged whisper, wrung from a throat screamed raw. He didn’t feel the pain, however, not now his eyes feverishly roamed his angel’s smiling face, glowing softly in Hell’s dimness.

“…Are you here?” He felt like he’d spoken these words before, although in a much different voice. He was equally unsure. You never knew when Hell’s punishment was over, after all. With what he’d done, it might go on until the End itself. “Are you real? No, you can’t be,” he rambled. “You can’t be here.” If Aziraphale was in Hell, he wouldn’t be smiling. Would they make him see his angel dying forever, never sure when it’d be the real thing? “This is a _trick_ –” His voice hitched again, _curse it_ –

“No. No, I’m real, darling. Come here.” The angel pulled him close, folding white wings around them both, emanating a gentle aura of soothing light. An aura that couldn’t possibly be replicated by any creature or illusion of Hell. He smelled of old paper and clean linen, fine wine and candle smoke, and that was somehow even more important. “As, Summer ended, Summer birds take flight,” he murmured, with the cadence of old poetry. “In happy dreams I hold you full in night –”

Crowley let out a choked sob, and clung on.

“I’m here. I’m right here.”

“I never even got to tell you –”

“Shh. You did, you did.” Hands on his face again, and then, so softly it was barely there, a kiss to his lips.

Before he knew what he was doing, Crowley had wrapped his arms around his angel and kissed him back, feverish and desperate. His heart hadn’t stopped pounding, but the pain had gone out of it, and the panic gradually followed. _Alive. Here. With me._

“I love you, Crowley,” Aziraphale murmured. The demon rested their foreheads together, forcing his trembling breath to slow. As he opened his eyes, his angel was looking back at him. “There. That’s better.”

The realization had settled in his bones like tangible warmth, somewhere along the way. “Nightmare again,” he chuckled tearfully, blinking with something like annoyance, something like overwhelmed gratitude and relief. “Blasted things.”

“They’re even worse than what actually happened, aren’t they. I’m so sorry for not picking up on it earlier, dear, you were making a right mess of the covers.” There was such pity in the angel’s eyes. Crowley shivered. “That… ngh. Bloody imagination.” Matters had gradually improved after Armageddidn’t, but the things that _could’ve_ been would probably haunt him for at least another century.

“Well, I won’t have it trouble you on my watch. Please, allow me.” The angel sat back slightly, raised a hand. “You shall wake having had a lovely dream about whatever you like b-”

“Aziraphale, wait.”

The angel stilled. “Hmm?”

Crowley took a deep breath. He was still shivering. “Don’t go.” He only realized he’d been reaching out as Aziraphale took his hands. “Please.”

A gentle squeeze. “I won’t.” A bright, encouraging smile and twinkling eyes in the dark. “I suppose I’ll get to see what you like best right alongside you, then.”

Crowley looked around. Without him noticing, the fetid darkness of Hell had made way for something subtly, yet vastly different. They no longer knelt on a filthy floor. They no longer knelt at all. They were floating, in a velvet darkness that stretched on infinitely, and yet somehow wrapped around them like a warm blanket at the same time. A gentle wind rustled through Aziraphale’s feathers, and Crowley haltingly unfurled his own wings to feel it too. He breathed deep as it blew into him, through him, achingly familiar.

And the darkness came alive in reaction.

With Crowley’s every shaky exhale, lights bloomed in the faraway depths, distant pinpricks like motes of dust settling. With every move he made, they intensified, their colours diversified; silver and azure and gold, purple and soft orange blending into eachother in an impossibly gentle gradient. He stretched out his cramped body, and his entire dream glittered like diamond dust. He spread his wings, and the displaced aether set everything spinning like paint in water.

He was back between the stars, and he only realized he’d started grinning when his cheeks started to hurt. He only realized he’d started crying when he spun around and saw tears floating away, refracting the sparkle of a thousand constellations.

He looked back, and had an even better view of the stars sparkling in his angel’s eyes.

Aziraphale was speechless, unable to focus on any one thing as his eyes wandered in astonished wonder. “You told me what it was like,” he murmured, his words carried by the gently swirling star-wind. “But I never even _dreamed…_”

“Neither did I,” Crowley breathed. “Not after what happened. Never even once.” With a flick of his wings that sent galaxies into spirals behind him, he floated over to Aziraphale, framing his face like something precious, something fragile. “Thank you, angel. You don’t know how much I…” His voice trailed off as he looked around, his eyes adjusting to a way of seeing that’d been first nature once upon a time.

“I can imagine,” the angel smiled, his awe overpowering every touch of sadness there might’ve been to his voice.

Crowley’s marveling grin settled into a more thoughtful smile as he narrowed his eyes, studying the firmament. He stretched out an arm, painting broad strokes across the glittering dark. He carefully created an impression of a golden heart fading into silver at the edges, the whole of it dotted with purple and vermillion and strewn with darker clouds. He flung out his wings and blew a gale of aether at it at full force, spinning it into a tilting, spiraling disc he knew was about two hundred lightyears across. At the time, he hadn’t been the only one working on this particular galaxy, of course – it’d been the Almighty’s prime project, not to be entrusted to any one angel – but here, he could do anything. Here, he was truly free. He found he did want to replicate this one perfectly, though.

Small, precise movements of his fingers giddily dotted in specific stars; constellations, though not the way the humans had ever interpreted them, a flat array of lines against the backdrop of the sky. No, these were the real deal, freely floating in three dimensions, _alive._

All the while, he was grinning in a way he rarely did on Earth. All the while, he could feel Aziraphale watching him with a smile brighter than the stars around them; captivated, enchanted by the sight.

In the end, he added in a final pair of stars right in the middle of one of the galaxy’s sprawling arms, clearly visible to him and his angel. The binary system sparkled like jewels, almost too close together to distinguish them from being one star anymore.

Crowley took Aziraphale’s hand, beholding his scintillating handiwork. “Those two were always my favourites,” he nodded.

“Tell me about them, my dear.”

The demon quirked a smile as it all came flooding back to him. “The one is just a bit larger and brighter than the sun. One of the brightest visible from Earth. It cycles between active and quiet rather slowly, rather calmly.” Crowley couldn’t help but marvel at the slow smile spreading across Aziraphale’s face as he understood. The angel still indulged the demon once more. “And the other?”

“Less bright, more orangeish in colour. It emits less visible light but more X-rays. It’s very active and prone to spitting out a stellar flare or two.”

“I think I love that one best,” Aziraphale chuckled softly, squeezing his hand.

“The, uh. The humans thought they were one star for a long time. Most still do. They’re still known best under just – just the one name.” Crowley’s heart picked up at the impossible softening of Aziraphale’s expression. “I didn’t make them for us at the time, of course, but I couldn’t stop thinking about them for the longest time, and – well, there are habitable planets there, there might even be _life_ by now –”

Aziraphale took his hand between both of his own. “I don’t regret sticking to Earth back then,” he spoke sincerely. “We really did have matters to attend to. But if not by day, then certainly now. Yes, my dear. Let’s go to Alpha Centauri.”

They spread their wings as one, bringing the cosmos to life around them all over again. As they soared away into the glittering expanse, Crowley hoped with all his star-struck heart that morning wouldn’t find him for a good long while, yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The two main stars of Alpha Centauri are really, ridiculously fitting. I had to.
> 
> Thank you for reading. Any and all comments are greatly appreciated <3 I tried out a few new things with this and I'd like to know what did and didn't work for you.


	2. From On High

There was war in Heaven, long before the Earth was created.

There was war in Heaven just before Hell would be created, but its horrors emerged in Heaven first.

The skies of the ethereal realm had always been beautiful, mirroring the moods and wishes of the angels beholding them, painted with ever-shifting hues and dotted with sparkling stars that changed and danced with their every fancy. Now, however, the skies were picking up on a very different set of emotions, and they’d changed accordingly. Now, they burned. Stars crashed down from above, and dark clouds whirled where they'd been, like blood sullying water. Below, the clouds that'd always been pure white now packed together in an angry grey, roiling in a storm not whipped up by any wind, but the maelstrom of millions of white wings beating for life and death. The great ethereal cities in the distance had been all but abandoned as angels of every Choir had been called to the most unthinkable battle; that against their own brethren.

Michael had called them all to arms with the ring of celestial trumpets, and she and the other Archangels had led an orderly charge, but there was very little left of that by now. It’d quickly fallen apart in a whirlwind of wings, flashing and flaming weapons, and cries the likes of which had never before been heard in Heaven, so very different from the singing of praise or the joy of creation.

It was the greatest horror Aziraphale had ever known. Everything had been harmonious before this, safe and encompassed by the perfect, glowing love of the Almighty, but now angels he knew and loved had turned against Her and all that was holy. As a Cherub, he’d personally led a platoon of angels into battle in response; Dominions, Virtues and Powers, armoured in full plate and armed with swords, spears and flails. He himself was armoured in his own burning aura and wielded his flaming sword, a beacon like a red-golden sun, but the weapon was more burden than reassurance. He didn’t want to fight. He didn’t want any of this.

He’d ventured into the vanguard as fast as he could, his flaming sword at the ready, but only to defend those behind him and maybe, just maybe, reason with the opposition. He _knew_ them, after all. He desperately wanted to spare them, bring them back from their folly.

In the clash of the two celestial armies, he’d shot over the front line, his four wings beating furiously, shielding his own wherever he could, dazzling his opponents into distraction where he could not. Most of them steered clear of a flaming Cherub, instead aiming for easier targets, and as the rebellious angels soared past him Aziraphale took his chance to hack away at their weapons, shattering swords and splitting spears with his fiery blade. His wings sent him spinning though the aether in a wild, but precise dance, leaving his opponents with vicious curses on their lips and him with a grim, determined little smile on his own.

Then, there was that one Dominion.

He caught the vicious grin on the slim, narrow face before he ever saw the spear. Still he tried to cleave it in half on pure reflex, but too late – he missed, and his opponent took the chance to get closer and soar along in his wake. Four wings milled frantically to stay aloft and evade every wild jab of the barbed tip – left, right, overhead, between two wings and just over his shoulder, just shy of costing him use of his sword arm.

“Why are you doing this?” he managed between blows. “There’s no need for any –”

“So naive,” the other panted. “You really want to serve Creation? Devote yourself to it? Like it’s anything more than some _game?_ We helped build it, we ought to _rule_ it!”

“I have faith in Her plans for us,” Aziraphale desperately uttered, trying to will the other angel into understanding, but she just shook her head, flung her wings forward to create some distance, and readied her spear for a wild throw.

Aziraphale’s wings were quicker, and more numerous. He rushed after her, reaching out on impulse, grabbing her by the collar and raising his blade, in self-defense or something more, he didn’t know – 

He’d been called to arms by the Archangels themselves. Angels were locked in combat all around him. Screams were ringing through all high Heaven. The way ahead was clear, his sword was raised, it was him or her – 

– but he just couldn’t.

He’d hesitated for too long. His opponent snapped out of her shock, shifted her grip on the spear, and thrust it between his armour and deep into his right leg. The barbed tip sliced through his flesh, and then she _twisted._

It was agony, unlike anything he’d ever known. Aziraphale screamed, grasping at the wound as the other angel tore her weapon free. Tears sprung into his eyes as he lost control of his wings. The other angel dove after him, fully intent on dealing the killing blow – but then someone else rammed her out of the way, just as Aziraphale painfully leveled out, panting and clutching his wound.

An angel he’d never seen before, his wings a blur, his red hair a fiery storm around his head. His wide eyes the most beautiful gold, with impossibly slit pupils…

_I never saw you in Heaven, this can’t be –_

He reached out with a trembling hand as the battle raged on above them, but before their fingers could touch, something shifted in the air around them.

A lone scream rang out. The angel with the barbed spear fell past them, wings limp, hands clawing out towards the sky. Burning feathers trailed after her, like stars, like embers.

More screams joined hers. Gaping holes fell into the battlefield overhead as angel after angel plummeted from their positions, high and low Choirs alike, Seraphim, Virtues, Powers, Principalities. It was all Aziraphale could do to stay aloft amidst the nightmare that unfolded as the skies whirled above, and the clouds below darkened further than they’d ever had – and then _opened,_ into a gaping black pit like the gullet of a great beast, hungering for all those that fell. He watched in mind-numbing horror as his brethren vanished into the ravenous dark, screaming, crying, begging, their flaming feathers filling the air like so many fallen stars.

“A-Aziraphale.”

He looked up. His companion’s voice had trembled in a way that’d gone straight through his heart, adding to the pain he was in.

“Crowley,” he choked out.

The golden-eyed angel’s wingbeat faltered. “Aziraphale, _please._”

There was nothing he could’ve done.

Nothing but dive after his Fallen angel as Crowley plummeted into the Pit, tears streaming from both their eyes as feathers burned and a hellish wind screamed past them.

The world darkened, and the Pit swallowed them both. Still Aziraphale folded his wings closer to his body, plunging through the dark, reaching out for long fingers he could never touch.

Black clouds opened up beneath him. Crowley had vanished. In his stead, there was only unforgiving ground, rushing up to meet him at breakneck speed. And break against it, he did.

He’d opened his wings to desperately slow his descent as soon as he’d seen, but far too late; they bent and snapped under the strain, feathers flying, fragile bone breaking as he cried out in fresh torment. Then his body slammed into a hard surface, skidded across it, and lay still in a heap of broken feathers.

He let out a ruined sob, feebly trying to push himself up with bloodied hands, shattered limbs. He looked up, dazed eyes scanning the unreachable sky.

He knew that sky.

He was back at the airbase, blood pooling on the asphalt at sunset. This wasn’t the Beginning, it was the End. But like in the Beginning, the Host was ready to descend onto its enemy.

The angelic ranks rippled overhead like a mirage, wings beating in great white waves, rank after rank of flaming weaponry at the ready. The Earth, much like Aziraphale, appeared to quiver beneath.

They would descend onto _him,_ too. He was no longer of Heaven. His wings were only stained red, not black, but he was Fallen in their eyes nonetheless.

The sound of a trumpet marked the beginning of the charge, as it once had, and the fury of Heaven set the sky alight in white and gold as it came crashing down to destroy all they’d once helped create, in a happier time long past.

The utter callousness of it hurt more than even his unthinkable injuries ever could.

_Hisss._

A sharp sound, like the escape of pressurized steam.

The world faltered. The blazing light flickered, uncertainly.

A crack coursed through the asphalt, just yards from where Aziraphale lay sprawled out in helpless agony. Then something immense exploded upwards, rising to the whirling sky like a pillar of black scales and hatred.

“_Not on my watch._”

The voice was the whizz of an incoming comet, the crash of thunder, the crackle of flame. Burning eyes turned to the sky as it darkened around the Heavenly Host, fangs were bared in a second hiss that shook the world. Then the great maw opened wider, as wide as the sky, devouring the angelic ranks as they charged down towards the monstrosity. It swallowed them all down with diabolical relish, and then turned back down to coil around the lone fallen angel as the world around it burst into flame.

Aziraphale found his body miraculously mending itself as the black leviathan wrapped around it. He clung on as its movements raised him to his knees, his breath rapid and irregular, still interspersed with sobs. The roar of the flames was all around, and he could feel the world dying.

“I’m so sorry, angel, I can’t give you nice dreams, I can only make nightmares worse –”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale uttered, barely holding on by the edge of one massive scale, his face pressed to it. “Oh, thank – thank _Heavens_ you’re alright…” He found it in himself to look up, and saw an immense serpentine face darkening the sky, meteors streaking past behind it. The monster’s golden eyes were like a twin sunrise, beautiful and reassuring beyond belief.

Aziraphale smiled, small, shaky, barely there, overcome by the familiarity of those eyes even before the meaning of the monster’s words could fully sink in.

“I know I should’ve woken you, but after what you did for me – I just wanted to try and help.” Shame and trepidation made an unlikely appearance on the huge face hovering over him. “Didn’t know it’d be this bad.”

The angel clung on. His smile spread across his face as the last blood vanished from his wings, and they spread out behind him. The desperate pounding of his heart gradually calmed. “You’re alright. You’re here.” A deep, tremulous breath. “It’s just… Just a little night terror… Oh, I knew I should’ve just put back that copy of _Paradise Lost_…”

“Yeah, petition to get rid of that, even if it is a first edition.” Crowley paused. “I’ll just – I’ll go and wake you now. ‘S not a good place to be, this.”

“It’s really not, but hold on just a tick, dear,” the angel smiled as the ground beneath his feet glowed red and crumbled into ash. “Dear Lord, is there nothing you won’t rescue me from? You came for me even in sleep.” He chuckled, touched, relieved, incredulous. “Thank you, Crowley.”

“Anytime. Don’t mention it.” The titanic serpent protectively lowered its head as lightning split the sky, stars and satellites screaming down all the same, leaving the firmament darker and darker. In the distance, the fire of dying cities cast a feeble glow into the black clouds. Despite it all, Aziraphale found himself unable to stop beaming. “Just look at you. Taking a page from Apep after all…”

The great snake would’ve blushed if it’d been able to. “Don’t bring that up. The Egyptians grossly exaggerated my role in past and future matters.”

“Well, as I recall, you also inspired the Wadjet myth when you sheltered the boy Horus, fair’s fair.”

“Yeah, yeah. Children and wayward angels, my only weaknesses. Now, did you want to stay and admire the view, or…?”

Aziraphale smoothed his hands over Crowley’s scales, unwilling to lose the contact. “I think we might be able to _change_ the view.”

Muscles like steel cables flexed under his fingers. “I told you, I can only make nightmares worse. Nice dreams are your department.”

“And I told _you,_ you were both Apep and Wadjet. Are you quite sure? Have you ever tried improving a dream?”

“Can’t recall. Don’t think it ever came up.”

The skies overhead were fully black now. The ground under Aziraphale’s feet and Crowley’s coils had turned to dull grey ash, soot and indefinable debris, the remains of a world come to an end. The angel looked up at the great snake, a knowing glint to his eyes. “Well? Aren’t you curious, dear?”

Of course he was. Crowley wouldn’t be himself if his mind wasn’t constantly going a mile a minute, churning out questions by the dozen. The great snake closed its mouth and thoughtfully looked around at the barren wasteland around them. “It’s your dream,” he muttered. “All I’d really need to do is take out the nasty bits… and…”

A hint of colour crept into the world, ever so subtle. Aziraphale picked up on a change in the air, letting out a small gasp as his heart instantly leapt with it. He let his eyes wander across the ashy hellscape.

And everywhere he looked, fragile green shoots came burrowing up through the grey.

The clouds shivered, lightening. Gentle rain pattered down into the ash. Aziraphale’s heart soared higher, and he found himself unable to stop grinning – and in reply, the shy, tentative plant life around him surged into overdrive. A carpet of lush grass spread like ink on a wet page, all too soon overtaken by flowers and shrubs. Other shoots exploded into trees, showering down leaves and petals, clouding the air with a golden haze of pollen. Many of them were apple trees.

“I dreamt about the past, in the stars,” Crowley observed behind him. “Are you as well, or is this some post-apocalyptic future?”

Aziraphale turned. The nightmarish snake had shifted into his demon’s usual, favorite shape, lazily sprawled out across a tartan blanket, though his eyes were attentively fixed on him. “Where are we, angel? This isn’t Eden, I don’t think.” He plucked at the blanket. “No tartan there, for a start.”

The angel looked around for a moment. No; this wasn’t Eden. Eden had never really been a garden, as such, but more of a rainforest in its own right, following the Almighty’s fancies as much as any wild ecosystem after it. This, however…

Grassy patches. Fruit trees. The wider world was barred off by undergrowth, but it all had a hint of planning to it, an almost human touch. The exotic birdsong and echoing calls of Eden were nowhere to be heard, the warm quiet instead only broken by the gentle cooing of pigeons and the faraway titter of blackbirds. This place didn’t feel like the Almighty’s grand landscaping project, where an angel might find duty and doubt. This place felt like home.

“A garden is a question,” the angel pondered quietly. He settled on the blanket, sitting up and thoughtfully looking around. “A question posed by humanity, perhaps. What does paradise look like if one can create it for oneself?” He looked back at Crowley, who’d gone quiet and rapt. “A question posed by the world. What will a person do with all that’s on offer, when given the choice?”

The demon looked up. He wasn’t sure if it’d been there before, but now there was the far-off impression of walls and windows beyond the orchard and the hazy sunbeams. A tiled rooftop. A house. “What kind of dream is this?” he asked, cautious, his heart fluttering.

Aziraphale leant into him with a smile. “Seeing as you’re here too? My very favorite kind, my dear.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Please leave a comment if you enjoyed it, you guys always make my day :D


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